Bickham Gets Big Payday at Charter

Former Cablevision exec nets $19.8M in total compensation

By Mike Farrell, Multichannel News -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/21/2013 6:12:27 PM

Charter Communications CEO Tom Rutledge received $5.3 million in total compensation in 2012, but he wasn't the most highly compensated executive at the Stamford, Conn.-based MSO. That distinction belongs to another former Cablevision executive -- chief operating officer John Bickham.

Bickham, who joined Charter on April 30, 2012, received a total of $19.8 million in total compensation in 2012, according to a proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission March 21.

Bickham, a 27-year veteran of the cable industry and Rutledge's former No. 2 at Cablevision and Time Warner Cable, received an annual salary of $872,597, according to the proxy. But the well-respected Bickham reaped a big payday in other compensation -- according to the proxy he received $12.7 million in stock awards and $4.8 million in option awards. Bickham also received $1.3 million in non-equity incentive plan compensation.

Rutledge, who received a salary of $1.8 million and non-equity incentive plan compensation of $3.3 million, according to the proxy, left Cablevision in December 2011 and joined Charter later that month. He officially began as CEO at Charter in February 2012 and in later months snapped up several other departing Cablevision executives, including Bickham, former executive vice president of consumer operations Kathleen Mayo and former executive vice president of corporate engineering and technology James Blackley.  According to the proxy statement, Mayo, now executive vice president of operations for Charter, received $5.3 million in total 2012 compensation, Blackley, now Charter's executive vice president, information and engineering, received $4.9 million in 2012 compensation.